Unwind & Rewind
by dottsie
Summary: Tony gives Violet her present on the first anniversary of their marriage. / A future domestic bliss drabble. Tony works for the NSA, and Violet's a full-time super.


Tony shut the front door to the apartment behind him, setting his suitcase down in its usual spot nearby. He was careful not to jostle it. It held precious cargo, after all.

A groan slipped out of his mouth as he stretched his arms and removed his shoes, hands-free. He had unlaced them in the elevator a minute prior, so that they'd slip off easily when he got inside. He was prepared. Had this whole getting-home thing down to a science.

As Tony crossed the combination living room and kitchen to retrieve a glass of water, he took off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of the couch. That was his last pinstripe. He made a mental note to make a trip to the dry cleaners this weekend.

His eyes glazed over as he looked out the kitchen window. It was raining outside. Drops of rain blurred the glass and made it impossible to see anything on the other side clearly.

Tony remembered what he had seen on the news earlier. Pocket whirlwinds downtown, was it? It seemed nasty. He hoped that his wife had a nice day, in spite of it all.

As if on cue, he saw a purple orb cross the apartment roof across the way. Through the rainy window, it looked alien; a blurry, glowing, nondescript sphere.

Tony sipped his water.

The orb rolled out of sight, and a minute or so later, he saw the front door of the apartment open out of the corner of his eye. The hinges squeaked over the sound of the faucet. The door shut, seemingly of its own accord, and he smiled in its direction. "Hey, there."

Violet materialized once the door was locked behind her. She never entered the apartment after work while visible. She claimed it would reveal her identity, but Tony knew if she lived by herself she wouldn't care that much. She was just protective of her family, and concealing her identity was part of that.

Her deep purple super suit was a bit dusty, and her hair looked like it had been blown around by several gusts of wind. She made a guilty face. "Aw, how long have you been home?"

Tony shook his head and took another sip from the glass. "Not much longer than you have, actually. I just got back."

"Good." Violet walked over and pecked him. "Happy anniversary, then!"

"Happy anniversary, Vi." He kissed her back on the cheek for good measure, and then watched her go to sit on the couch. "Anything interesting in the field today?"

Violet tugged at her boots and shook her head. "Define interesting. It was some joker who created artificial tornadoes with this machine he invented. Why are the bad guys always inventors?" She blew a tuft of hair out of her face. "It'd be cool to fight someone with superpowers. Well, maybe not _cool,_ but it would be a nice change of pace."

Tony forgot about his glass of water now that his wife was home, and left the thing on the counter. He opted to go sit next to her instead. "You look tired."

"Yeah." Her dark magenta mask sat idly in her hands. Tony had never worn a super mask himself, but he imagined taking one off was like him taking off his shoes. A relief at the end of a long day.

Violet turned her back to Tony, inviting him to massage her shoulders. This was another part of the coming-home routine: taking care of each other. Usually in the form of massages.

As he began working on her shoulders, she continued. "Lots of forcefields were needed. Stuff was flying everywhere. Dash was the real MVP today, though - being able to run against the wind and stuff. But at least I _had_ something to do; Douglas tagged along today, and he must have felt like garbage."

Tony frowned. "There's not much that a super with plant powers can do in that situation, is there?"

"Not really. I think Dash was about to make it a _thing_ , like they do, but something held him back." Violet leaned back into her husband's chest, interrupting the shoulder rub. "I don't get those two. I get Dash, but I don't get _them_ as a unit. It's already exhausting enough being a super, why would you want to compete with your boyfriend about it?"

Tony shrugged and ran his fingers through Violet's hair, straightening it up. "I think that's how they show affection. Some couples like being competitive."

"I guess." She shrugged. "What about you? Anything interesting going on around the NSA?"

"Hmmm, let's see..." His brow furrowed. "Oh, Reflux came by. He's out of the hospital now; I knew that heart attack wouldn't keep him down. Not someone like him."

"Really? Good for him. I like Gus."

"Me too, but the reason he came by was to renegotiate his retirement benefits." Tony ignored Violet's snickers, but he was smiling, too. "I think the guy wants us to pay for a trip to Florida."

Violet shook her head. "If you see him again, tell him I said that relocation isn't all that it's cracked up to be."

"Nah, it's not that. He just wants to go on vacation, to the beach or something."

"Ugh, now you've put the image of Reflux in swim trunks in my head." She covered her face with her hands. "Next topic."

Tony pursed his lips, trying to think, and then he remembered The Thing. "Oh, yeah, Dicker's retiring."

"What?" Violet's hands dropped. "Retiring? For real this time?"

"For real this time." He nodded. "I honestly don't know how the man's been doing this for this long, anyway."

"He's a man of few smiles, but he's got a good heart. I'm gonna miss him." She frowned in contemplation. "He's done so much for us supers. I should visit him before he moves away. Gotta tell my parents, too."

"Definitely."

Violet and Tony sat in silence for a minute, enjoying each other's soothing company. The only noise was the rhythm of the rain and of their heartbeats.

Since getting married and moving into their own place, they had quiet moments together now more than ever, but Violet doing regular hero work still meant these moments weren't as common as they would have liked them to be.

It was Tony who would break the silence this time. His thoughts kept drifting back to his briefcase; he had been worrying all day over finding a good moment to unveil it, but this was perfect.

He gently pushed Violet up. "Hey, I've got an anniversary present for you."

She narrowed her eyes, half in jest and half serious. "I thought we agreed no presents. Just dinner."

"That's true, but I got something today that made me break the rule." He had crossed the room to his briefcase now, and was rummaging through it.

"But I didn't get you anything. Now we're uneven."

"This was just as much of a present for me as it will be for you." Tony was back at the couch, clutching a small box. His hands were shaking.

Violet noticed his nervous habit, but didn't bring it up. It would have just made him _more_ nervous. She grinned instead. "That's just confusing." She examined the size of the fairly small box. "Tony, I don't know if that's a piece of jewelry or not, but if you'll remember, you've already proposed. We're married."

Tony laughed and some of the tension dropped from his shoulders. "Nah, Dicker gave this to me. He found it while he was cleaning out his office."

"Really?" Her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, you remember the whole memory wipe thing, when we were kids? I don't, obviously, but, uh..." He mentally kicked himself for making a lame joke about the Incident, and then mentally kicked himself for mentally kicking himself. Violet was his _wife_ now. He had no reason to still be nervous around her for any reason.

Violet propped her head up with her hand, her elbow perched on the back of the couch. The mind wipe had happened _so_ long ago, but she still felt a little guilty about it.

She had told Tony about the whole thing not too long after she told him about her powers. That couldn't have been more than a few months after they had started going steady. The story apparently checked out to Tony; he had felt like there was a weird part of his memory missing, but he could never tell what it was.

Thankfully, Tony had taken it in stride, the kind guy that he was, but Violet could tell it bothered him sometimes. He didn't blame her for it, of course, but it had to _suck_ not being able to remember your very first memories with a person you cared about.

Violet remembered tagging along with her dad on a visit to the NSA once, intent on talking to Dicker herself. She had bargained with the guy to give Tony his memories of her back (it was a very Teenager thing to do). Rick first chided her for giving out her identity on purpose, and then explained apologetically that restoring a wiped memory was impossible.

Once a memory was gone, erased by the machine, it was gone. Dead matter. It wasn't like a repressed memory; it was killed entirely.

So Violet and Tony persevered. They still liked each other, anyway, whether one of them had a few erased memories or not. But there was always a nagging thought in the back of their heads. A 'what if?'.

Now, sitting on the couch in the apartment they shared together, Tony was bringing it up. They almost never brought it up; it was pointless to.

Violet stared at the box more intently now.

Tony's fingers absentmindedly pulled at the edges of the lid. "Well, when the memory wipe happened to me, they kept files of it. The NSA keeps files of everything, so I honestly don't know why I didn't think of looking for something like this before -"

"Is it something about your memories?"

Tony nodded and finally pulled the lid off of the box. There was a recording device inside; the model was old, but it was well-preserved.

Violet's jaw dropped.

Tony picked the device up, his thumb pushing the 'rewind' button, preparing it for another listen. His voice was quiet. "It's the interrogation. Interview. Whatever. Rick gave it to me earlier, said that he knew it was our anniversary." He smiled warmly. "He's good at remembering things like that."

Violet's voice was slightly hoarse now, her tone inquisitive and slightly excited. "Have you listened to it?"

He nodded and took her free hand. "Yeah, I have. And I really want you to hear it, too."

There were a few heavy (but not unpleasant) moments while the tape finished rewinding, and then it ceased its whirring. It was finished.

Without another word, he clicked play, and fourteen-year-old Tony's voice crackled through the quiet apartment.

It wasn't a long interview, not at all. It was only a few minutes long. The NSA was efficient, if nothing else.

Despite that, it felt like it took an eternity for the recording to fizzle out, but it passed by too quickly, as well. All at the same time.

As Dicker concluded the tape by rattling off some identification info, Tony finally pried his eyes away from the device and looked up at Violet. He hadn't been able to make eye contact with her while the recording was playing. Neither of them were much good at that, anyway, and this was something that needed to just be absorbed with full attention.

But when he looked up at her, she had a huge grin on her face. It was covered by her hand, but he could tell she was smiling wide by the crinkles around her eyes.

He tried to sound casual. "Crazy, huh?"

She half-sobbed, half-laughed. "You felt so bad about it, you poor baby."

Tony rubbed his forehead, his expression matching hers. "Listening to it earlier, I still felt bad, just hearing about it! When I saw you, I just _ran_? I already knew I did that, cause you've told me before, but..."

"You were fourteen, and you had almost been crushed by several flying cars after witnessing your first supervillain. You get a pass." She tilted her head at him. "But that was the cutest interrogation I've ever heard."

He grinned sheepishly. "It's surreal, listening to things I can't remember saying. But I can still feel the emotions behind it. I was the most smitten kid at all of Western View."

She was about to respond, but had to pause for a second to wipe a stray tear. "God, Tony, look at me. You turn me into such a sap."

"That's my job, isn't it?"

The two of them embraced, hugging as tight as they could, Violet planting face and shoulder kisses wherever she could reach.

The hugs between them felt like being home. Warm fireplaces and hot chocolate and fluffy blankets.

When they finally pulled apart, Violet's violet eyes looked up at him, their usual bags more pronounced than normal. "What if we ditched the dinner place? Spent the anniversary here? We could, like... experiment or something."

"Experiment. How so?"

"I dunno. I could be the little spoon this time, when we go to sleep. And I know you've got that new ham recipe you wanted to try. It sounded delicious."

Tony pecked her forehead. "Sounds like a plan. The restaurant can wait."

"Let's change out of our suits, though. This sounds like a job for pajamas. Those expensive Egyptian Cotton pajamas we got from Edna last Hanukkah."

"You've told her now that presents are more of a Christmas thing, right?"

"Yeah, but those things are _comfy_."

Tony stood up and walked to the kitchen to begin preheating the oven, while Violet went to fetch the pajamas. The rain continued to sing its calming song, its aftereffect on the window resembling a force field.


End file.
